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A Lesson From Marquis
by Mark Larson

Let me tell you about my new hero. His name is Marquis. He’s a first-grader at McDowell Elementary School on 89th Street. I met Marquis when Mrs. Fran Baptiste, a teacher at McDowell, decided she wanted to teach her students lessons that the classroom couldn’t contain.

Her themes: You are citizens of Chicago; you are welcome here; and as citizens, you have a right and responsibility to know its cultural and political institutions. She also wanted them to see and experience first-hand that the museums, the symphony, the parks of Chicago are open and accessible to all-- that "you can get there from here!" So when Mrs. Baptiste took her children, ranging in age from kindergarten to 5th grade to The Field Museum this year, she made them get there by their own power. She had them ride their bikes three miles up the lakefront. Along the way, they stopped to talk about the skyline, the waterfall behind McCormick place (did you know there was one?) and to watch planes land at Meigs Field.

The idea for the trip was so attractive that the day turned into an event. The Local School Council arranged to provide every child with a bright red windbreaker imprinted with the name of the school; three of us from The Field Museum decided to ride along; Alderman Dixon met the procession part way to cheer them on; more parents volunteered to help than we could accommodate; and ABC-TV’s Children First sent a camera crew to document the journey. So the pressure was on. We had to do this thing, even though the sky threatened a downpour, even though we weren’t certain every child was equipped to go the distance.

And that brings me to Marquis. His was the smallest bike. It stood no taller than my knees. It had training wheels. The other kids rode bigger bikes with bigger wheels that could go faster and farther with less effort. Marquis’s legs, like tireless pistons, pumped furiously when he pedaled. When we asked, he insisted that he would make it the whole way. But we wondered. Three miles.

Early in the morning, the kids lined up at 31st Street at the lake with the television crew on camera-equipped bikes ahead of them. Fran Baptiste and volunteers from the school and museum flanked the line. Spontaneously, the kids began a count down: 10, 9, 8, 7... When they got to one, off they rode forming a magnificent, red ribbon along the bicycle path. One kid, David, riding a brand-new bike, took off way ahead of the pack and kept going. My job became to keep David from reaching Milwaukee before the rest reached The Field Museum. In the rear, far in the rear, rode Marquis.

From time to time, we had to stop the kids in the lead and wait for the rest. And each time we did, no matter how long the wait, we came to count on seeing Marquis’s tiny form eventually rounding the corner or cresting the hill. His classmates, standing along the path, always cheered. But Marquis didn’t stop even then; he kept pedaling, past them all, taking the lead, if only for a moment.

Marquis is my hero because he never, even for an instant, questioned his capacity to make it. And make it he did. Mrs. Baptiste is my hero, too, because she dared to re-envision schooling so she could teach her children, in the most effective manner she could think of, the lessons she had in mind. Along the way, she had a reminder for all educators (and parents, too): Neither the practice of education nor children’s ability to succeed are bounded. There’s always more, there’s always better, there’s always farther, there’s always, always another way to get there.

As you think back over the past year and begin to envision the new one, if you feel you need a reminder of what you, as educators, can accomplish or why you work as tenaciously as you do, close your eyes and picture your own Marquis cresting yet one more hill, pedaling hard and smiling the whole way.